How can you find the best parts of your brand?

Farra Trompeter: Welcome to the Smart Communications Podcast. This is Farra Trompeter, co-director and worker-owner at Big Duck. On today’s episode, we’re going to ask the question: How can you find the best parts of your brand? And I am delighted to be joined by Lyn Weinman. Lyn uses she/her and is the founder, president, and chief strategist at KidGlov, a full-service branding and marketing agency, and the author of Untangling Spaghetti: A Branding Fable, which is an Amazon best-selling book on nonprofit branding. Lyn is a passionate leader and galvanizing speaker who draws upon over 30 years of experience and an extraordinary body of work with clients, community organizations, and changemakers of all kinds. Lyn, welcome to the show.

Lyn Wineman:: Farra, thanks for having me. You know, this is one of those situations where I’ve been listening to the podcast and now I get to be a guest.

Farra Trompeter: That’s right. Long-time listener, first-time guest.

Lyn Wineman: There you go. There you go. Bucket list moment here. I’m eager to speak with you. I know you have a lot of wisdom in this space, and I’m happy to talk with you and your audience.

Farra Trompeter: Amazing. Well, likewise. And let’s actually start with that wisdom that you put in a book. So, love the name Untangling Spaghetti. Makes me hungry even just thinking about it. Also triggers a childhood memory: I have two older brothers who I’m going to just, you know, go for it here. You know, when my mom was pregnant with me, she was into pottery, for some reason. I’m the only girl and the youngest, and we were having dinner once, and my brother’s like, “Oh, yeah, mom made those plates.” And they were like, “Yeah, you can see her name underneath it.” So, of course, here I am, five or six years old, I pick up the plate of spaghetti. You can guess what happens next. That plate went all over me.

Lyn Wineman: On your head?

Farra Trompeter: I mean, I’m a very klutzy person. I’ve held onto that trait. And they thought it was the funniest thing that happened. So let’s go back to it. So, Untangling Spaghetti.

Lyn Wineman: I think that’s the perfect intro to talk about the book because what I love about branding is when it’s done well and it’s really authentic, it feels like you are searching through all of the chaos. You’re searching through, you know, the “Let’s put these meatballs aside, this sauce that’s distracting us, right? Let’s find the things that really matter, the things that really speak to who you are as an organization, to who your audience is, that differentiate you. Let’s find those things and let’s pull them together.” And so, KidGlov has been working on a process for our entire history–15 years–and which I know is only half the history of Big Duck, I believe. But we’ve been working on this process, and that’s exactly what it’s designed to do. So, I didn’t set out to write a book called Untangling Spaghetti. I don’t even–don’t tell too many people–I don’t even love spaghetti that much. But I love the idea of whenever I say, “Hey, it’s all about, you know, going through and finding those little hidden gems and putting them together in a brand.” People get that. So that’s the visual I was going for.

Farra Trompeter: I love it. Well, I’m curious to go a level deeper. You actually wrote the book as a fable. Yes, there are a lot of branding books, including our founder, Sarah Durham, wrote Brandraising. And I know I talked to you recently about a book called The Brand Idea. They’re sort of more either academic or instructional manuals, or how to think about doing branding, but yours is written as a fable. And I’m just wondering if you could talk about what inspired you to write it in that format.

Lyn Wineman: Absolutely. You know how it is when you’re an agency and you are talking to people about communications and branding and marketing all the time. And sometimes you forget to take your own advice, right? And so I talk ad nauseam about the importance of storytelling, right? And stories produce emotion. Emotion produces trust. Trust leads to action. Right? And so, out of fairness, we did start the book. We have an eight-step process. We wrote a series of eight blogs that never got published because we wrote them. They were lovely, they were on target. I read them and I was like, “You know, this is kind of boring, right? So let’s go back and make this something really relatable, really memorable.” Because what I’ve heard about most business books is most people only get through the first three chapters. As a matter of fact, I was advised to put all the important stuff in the first three chapters, because most people won’t get beyond that. And so what I wanted to do was write a book where people would really see themselves, feel themselves in the process. And those who just want the to-do list, there’s a 55-page downloadable companion guide. Seriously, it could be its own book, but you can have the story, you can have the companion guide, and you can go through it side-by-side and get everything you need.

Farra Trompeter: You know, it reminds me, to that point, you know, I read business books periodically. And one of the ones I know I read a while ago that wasn’t a fable format that I have remembered is Who Moved My Cheese? Do you remember that book?

Lyn Wineman:: Oh my gosh, Who Moved My Cheese? I do. Because it came out at a time. So here’s my memory, because I think we’ve both been in the business, you know, 30 years,

Farra Trompeter: We’re very young. We’re also only 30 years old.

Lyn Wineman:: How did that happen? We were babes when we started.

Farra Trompeter: That’s right. That’s right.

Lyn Wineman: So it came out at the time that, and, and this will be so hard to imagine for our Gen Z, your Gen Z listeners, your millennial listeners. It came out at a time when the internet, websites, and social media were coming of age. And I remember at the time working at a large regional agency with a creative team that was like, “I’m not working on social media, that is below me. Right? Like, that’s crazy. That’s kid stuff.” And, “I’m not writing a website. Who needs a website when they’ve got this beautiful brochure?” It’s hard to imagine. There was a time, and I remember buying a copy of Who Moved My Cheese? for everyone on the team. I don’t even think I expensed it. I think I bought it out of my own pocket. I’m like, “People. Our cheese is moving.”

Farra Trompeter: It’s time to move the cheese.

Farra Trompeter: It’s time to make the donuts.

Lyn Wineman: If you haven’t read the book, it’s a great book that’s all about change and adaptability.

Farra Trompeter: Exactly. I’m sure there’s a 30-second video about it, but, you know, read the book. Go a little retro.

Lyn Wineman:: This might be the good year to read it too. Because it feels like this is the year everything is changing. Cheese is like moving all over the place.

Farra Trompeter: I know. Spaghetti, cheese, I’ve got to have some burrata for dinner tonight. It’s all inspiring me. Well, one of the things that I really liked about the book is there’s a mention of (and I think this is how, you know, KidGlov also operates), is: Does an organization need a rebrand, a refresh, or to raise awareness? And I often have those conversations, our team often has the conversations about the differences between those approaches, when you need what, and when. But I’m curious, how do you diagnose and recommend which strategy to pursue in the world of rebrand, refresh, or raise awareness?

Lyn Wineman: Absolutely. We actually have a tool that we use, and it’s a tool that’s covered in the first few chapters of the book. As a matter of fact, if you stop at the third chapter, it’s the only tool you will learn about. We call it the brand compass, which is not that creative of a name, but it’s what it does. And I like this tool because oftentimes when we work with nonprofits, we’ll have usually an executive director come to us and say, “I think we need something. But I’m not quite sure what, but I’m pretty sure I can’t convince my board that we need a rebrand. And I don’t know if I can convince my team that we need a rebrand.” And so what we like to do is go in with this tool. It starts in a place that I think you will love, Farra, because it reminds me of things I’ve heard you say. But it starts with really like getting aligned with what’s your mission as an organization? Who are your most important audiences, and why are those important? Like, get that information really clear in your mind, and then it asks a series of yes or no questions. And once you get through those yes or no questions, it becomes pretty clear to people, “Oh, this is the direction we should go.”

Lyn Wineman: And so it’s a great tool that you can go through on your own, but it’s almost even better–and this is what the book talks about in the second and third chapters–it’s a great tool to go through with your board or a group. You know, maybe if you have a subset on your board that’s doing marketing or communications to go through that process together because it aligns your thinking and it gives you, sometimes I even say it gives you a hypothesis to test, because later in the process you can do some research, you can talk to people, you can do interviews, you can test it out. But it’s always helpful to go into the process with a hypothesis. And sometimes I think that boards or maybe people who are more risk-averse, it’s easy for them to say, “No, no, no. The brand we have right now is fine. The messaging we have right now is fine. That is not our problem.” And it feels like if you can get aligned on this early on, it can open your mind to the rest of the process.

Farra Trompeter: Yeah, because a lot of times people hear “branding” and they automatically think, “Oh, you’re going to throw everything out and we’re starting brand new. You’re going to come up with a brand new name, new logo, new colors, new way of talking about things.” And you know what, sometimes you need that. And sometimes we’ll recommend that. But sometimes you actually just need to address one of those things or part of those things. You know, we only recommend a name change in 15-20% of the situations at most. It is not something we recommend lightly. And oftentimes, even if we think we’re starting a project with a rename, we will come back to questioning it as we do that research to really confirm if we should go down this road. So, rebrand to me, when I hear that, that means full makeover.

Lyn Wineman: Yep. A rebrand is a name. And when you do the name, you’re doing everything else. You gotta do everything else, right? Like, you’re not going to use a new name with your old logo, but you have to have some basis in authentically where you are. Right. Because very few, I think, organizations warrant something that is so radically different that I don’t recognize where you came from or honor, right? Like, you have a history, whether it’s a 100-year history or a 10-year history. You have a history, you have some awareness. How do we build upon that and take you to that next step?

Farra Trompeter: Exactly. And sometimes you do the research and you find out that your history is problematic. Or that not the right people know you and and the way you are communicating is alienating them currently. So those could help signal, you know, we need a rebrand. But sometimes it really is just about clarifying and freshening up one part of your brand. And other times it is just about getting yourself out there more, you know, raising the volume.

Lyn Wineman: Raising the volume, raising awareness. Exactly. Yeah. Your name is fine, your logo is fine, but the way you are promoting yourself is not getting it out there. Honestly, I think one of the saddest things that can happen is to see an organization. And I actually spoke earlier this year at AFP Icon, Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Seattle. And I had a number of people come to my session who said, “We rebranded, but we spent all of our resources on the rebrand, and now nobody knows who we are.” And so, you know, one of the important steps in our eight-step process that’s in the book is the brand launch strategy.

Farra Trompeter: We call it a rollout plan. Yeah. You got, you can’t cut that off.

Lyn Wineman: Yes. And I have this one painful chapter in my branding history where we worked for nine months, and it was a refresh, so we didn’t change the name, but we changed the tagline, we changed the logo, we changed the messaging. The organization was ready for a strategic shift in their mission. And the executive director, on the day they approved the name and the logo, got so excited. He walked out of the meeting, held up a sheet of paper to his entire staff, and said, “This is it.” But they, I know you are, people won’t be able to see you, but you’re shaking your head because you know what happened, right? Like, they had not been brought along on the journey. They did not know the case for making the strategic shift, you know? So the staff in this particular situation became so upset that they started talking to clients, and then it was a whole groundswell that set the whole project back two years and maybe even, you know, really took the wind out of the sails of it forever.

Lyn Wineman: So, having that very specific plan on who to tell, what to tell them, and I think the order in which you tell your different audiences is important too, because it can be such an incredible opportunity to say, “You are so important to us. We’re bringing you in early. Right? Like, this isn’t going to go public for a little bit now but, but you big donor, you employees, you, you know, X, Y, Z partners. We want you to know first, and we want you to know why. And here’s how, you know, it impacts our mission and us going forward together.”

Farra Trompeter: Right. And our volunteers and our program participants. And in that, there’s both the rollout plan and how you announce any, you know, changes you’re making. And, you know, depending on how many things you’re changing will depend on how much of a rollout plan you need to do. But also, we talk a lot about, and I’m guessing you do too, that you need to bring your staff on the journey along the way. And your staff are, are one of, if not the most important audience when it comes to your brand. And it’s often not named when you say, “Oh, who are the audiences that you need to reach with your brand?” People will say things like you said, you know, donors, our board policy makers, the media, funders, program participants, partners. Like what about staff? “Oh, staff know who we are.” And I’m like, “Do they? Are you listening to them?”

Lyn Wineman: When we do our survey work related to any level of branding work, staff is always the first group to be surveyed, right? And because I always want to, and one of my favorite things to do, I love it when a client invites me in to help with a brand launch presentation to staff. And I always like to say, “Who filled out that survey six months ago? You know, you remember it had some long-form questions and maybe some abstract questions”, and they’re all like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, I did.” It’s like, “Well, thank you. Because you played a big part in creating what we’re going to reveal today.” And I love that part of the equation.

Farra Trompeter: Yeah. It’s always good to remind people when that input was gathered and how it was used. Well, we said this podcast was going to ask the question about the best parts of your brand. And I’m going to do a spin on that for this point, which is: What do you see as the most important and essential elements of a nonprofit’s brand or their best? However you want to take that.

Lyn Wineman: I love that. The most important and essential parts of a nonprofit’s brand. Well, I always think (A) It needs to be based in authenticity. (B) It needs to be clearly communicated. (C) They need to be differentiated. And (D) (I’m really getting into my letters here), it needs to resonate with your audiences. Right? And so the untangling spaghetti process is all about, you know, starting with understanding your vision and then moving to understanding how people feel about you today, and then moving to your competitive set because I know in the nonprofit world, we don’t like to think that we have competitors, but we have people who have similar programs or we have people who have, you know, similar causes and overlapping donors. So how do you stand out? Then we like to build a brand archetype profile. So they’ve got a really clear personality definition that they can lean into.

Lyn Wineman: And then we like to bring them back together and go, “Okay, this is our brand strategy. This is what it’s based on.” Everyone in agreement, everybody who gets to approve whatever we’re doing for branding needs to be in that room and nod their head, “We’re in agreement, let’s go.” And I like to do all of that before we even touch any of the creative elements, right? So that when the creative team starts, they’ve got such a clear vision of where they’re going, that it makes the work their focus, really, you know, laser straight on where they’re going.

Farra Trompeter: Great. Well, I know that as we were preparing for this conversation that we both talked about how we have both served on boards of nonprofits. You also have several board members as cast of characters in the fable of Untangling Spaghetti. So I want to take a minute and talk to you a little bit about the role of boards in the nonprofit branding process. Where do you think they should participate in the branding process, and where do you think, in many cases, the board may need to step back?

Lyn Wineman: Yeah, I love that. You know, I’m going to tell you, I told you one horror story about the baffling brand launch slip-up. I’m going to tell you one other horror story.

Farra Trompeter: We’re going to have to, you know, listen to this around Halloween or after, I can’t remember when this one is coming out, but we have a hot, spooky moment.

Lyn Wineman: I’ll do my witch laugh at the end of the podcast for you.

Farra Trompeter: There you go.

Lyn Wineman: I had this one experience where I just didn’t even, I didn’t realize this was happening, I didn’t think to ask, but I walked into a board meeting, I was invited in to present a new brand, a full rebrand, name, logo, assets, everything. Probably a year’s worth of work. When I walked into the boardroom, the executive director was explaining to the board for the first time that “Today you are going to see a new brand.” And I just like, almost wanted to turn around and walk back out of the room because it’s like, “This board is not prepared. They haven’t been part of the journey. They didn’t get a chance to weigh in on the strategy.”

Lyn Wineman: So, my favorite way to work with a board on a branding project of any kind is to have a few key representatives of the board actively involved in the strategy. I like the board to approve, even if all they can approve is “We’re just going to investigate what we need.” Right? Like, what is that first little step? The board needs to be along the way that this is the vision and this is where we’re going. I like to have a few representative board members that are consistently along the way that will approve the name, approve the logo, and help us take that back to the board. But then once that’s approved, I like the board to step back. And then that’s the time that the staff takes on the work of how does this now get executed both strategically and creatively? I’ve had a few cases where an entire board was involved in the early steps, which is okay, but honestly, it’s a lot for a volunteer board. And there are some people who are really engaged and have the knowledge and the interest, and some people who don’t, who’d rather be talking about operations or donations or programs or whatever the other things are. So I like that kind of divide-and-conquer idea when it comes to boards.

Farra Trompeter: Great. And we do something similar. I think we talk about a working group that usually is primarily, usually more staff involved, but we tend to have a few board members, depending on the organization. And then I think the rest of it really depends on the culture of the board, the stage of the organization. So if you’re rebranding, I do think having the board understand the new name is really critical. I have mixed feelings about the board approving a logo. I think it, you know, for many organizations you’ve hired, hopefully, a well-functioning, high-performing, very smart communications team and executive director, and, you know, can they make that decision? And does a board really need to decide on logo? We’re changing our mission statement. That mission statement goes everywhere. It’s important for your 501 C3 status. I get that the board should approve that. But some of these other pieces, I think, again, depending on the size of the organization, the maturity of the organization, and the skills of its staff, I sometimes think there can be a little bit of moments of overreach. It really just depends on a few factors.

Lyn Wineman: Fair, fair. And you know, when we say “Have the board approve the logo,” we’re usually walking in with one very tightly developed…

Farra Trompeter: Right. They’re not seeing every single round of options.

Lyn Wineman: No, they’re not seeing every single round. They’re not even seeing options at that point. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I always strategically recommend against is the “Let’s have people vote on this name”, or “Let’s have people vote on this logo.” It’s like: No, because if you have people vote for one thing, you will always have a percentage of the people that will be a loser. And if they’re the loser, they’re not going to be able, you need everybody to eventually come on board and get together behind this new brand. And so you don’t want some people to feel like they were on the other side. Also, I just feel like it’s impossible for everyone to know the vision of where the organization is. So if you are going to rely on a vote, while it seems very democratic and very inclusive, it means you’re most likely going to be stuck where you are right now, because they’re going to be less willing to take that jump to move forward.

Farra Trompeter: Yeah. That’s a good point. Well, before we go, I’m going to ask you one more question because I find it interesting that at KidGlov, you also work with purpose-driven businesses and social enterprises. So I’m curious for you, how is branding different? Where do you find branding nonprofits is the same or where is it different from these other types of organizations?

Lyn Wineman: Yeah. You know, I think that’s such a good question. I think that often we find the process is the same, right? Like the eight steps with a few supplementary items, the process works, but helping navigate through the process, like, are we working with a board structure, or are we working with an ownership group, or are we working with an investor group? Like, being able to navigate the process, I think, is really an important one. Like, to me, when I think about branding and I think about the process in the book, what we’re really trying to do is come up with the right strategy, get the creative team everything they need to build the brand, but also to give the decision makers the information they need to make a confident decision.

Lyn Wineman: And you know, I just had a situation where I spent a few days in Wyoming working with a client who’s midway through a brand process because they all were aligned and said, “Yes, we need a rebrand.” And honestly, if anybody I’ve ever worked with they needed a rebrand. But then you get faced with the idea of selecting a new name and thinking about the reality of, “I’m going to tell everybody about we are going to change and people are going to criticize it. Maybe we could just stick with our old name and put a better logo around it?” And so for me, the reason I got on a plane and went out and spent two days is to remind them, it’s because I love this nonprofit and I love working with them because it’s my profession. I can see the potential of this for them, right? Like, I can feel the benefit of it, and I also can feel them just lugging that old brand around with them, like a ball and chain. I see you smiling, you’ve been there. Right? And so I think the main difference is knowing how to work with the different decision-making groups, and then also knowing the nuances of communicating the brand, depending on whether it’s a for-profit, a behavior change project, or a nonprofit project where you’re going to be really leaning into fundraising and donors in a big way. I think that’s the biggest difference.

Farra Trompeter: Great. Well, if you’re out there and you are interested in learning more about Lyn’s work, checking out the book, or accessing other resources they have, check out the website KidGlov.com. And that’s glove without an E. So, K-I-D-G-L-O-V. You can also connect with Lyn on LinkedIn and tune into her podcast, Agency for Change, which I had the pleasure of being a guest on.

Lyn Wineman: I can’t wait for your episode to launch, Farra. It’s going to be a good one.

Farra Trompeter: And I think perhaps by the time our episode launches, it will have, so we’ll be sure to link to that and all these other resources in the show notes at bigduck.com/insights. But before we go, Lyn, I just want to ask you one last thing, which is: Anything else you’d like to share with our listeners? Any other thoughts or advice, anything else coming to mind for you?

Lyn Wineman: Well, to go along with the book, we are launching an online, on-demand masterclass. So if you go to KidGlov.com under what’s new and click on masterclass, we’re actually teaching people how to go through the Untangling Spaghetti process. This year, more than ever, I get calls every week from nonprofits who know they need some attention on their brand, but don’t have the resources to do one-on-one work. And so while it’s a little bit scary for me just to go, “Here’s the process, let’s give it away,” right? I really do want it to be in people’s hands, and I know that we all can go right now on to a variety of AI tools on the internet. We can find all kinds of tools, but I think the beauty of the process is knowing and understanding how the steps work together and doing them in the right way, doing them in the right order.

Lyn Wineman: It kind of goes with that same saying, what is it? I’m probably going to tangle this, but it’s, “The value is greater than the sum of the parts.” Slightly tangled, but you get what I’m saying there. And I think that’s the deal. And I know Big Duck, you all have a great process, too. You’re doing all kinds of workshops and trainings, and you know, this is, we’re, we’re putting it out there so people can have access to the tools because we know that when a nonprofit has a great brand, it’s going to help boost their recognition and recall. It’s going to lift their fundraising efforts, it’s going to help them reach the people they serve. And even I think, a new wrinkle, it’s going to help with their recruitment and retention because branding makes a big difference when it comes to employment.

Farra Trompeter: Yeah. 100%. My colleague, Olivia Freire, our director of operations, wrote a great blog about the connection between branding and recruitment and retention, which we’ll also link to. Well, Lyn, thank you so much for being here today.

Lyn Wineman: Absolutely. So much fun. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Farra, I just have so much respect for you and the work that you do. It’s been a fun conversation.

Farra Trompeter: Well, likewise, and I’ll be sure to have some spaghetti tonight and think of you. Alright, everyone, have a great day.